"Yes" said Margaret.

"I know--I would not have it otherwise; but what is tiresome is this.

Richard is very good, but he is so dreadfully hard to stir up, and what's worse, so very much afraid of papa, that while he is thinking about opportunities, they will all go by, and then it will be Easter, and nothing done!"

"He is not so much afraid of papa as he was," said Margaret. "He has felt himself useful and a comfort, and papa is gentler; and that has cheered him out of the desponding way that kept him back from proposing anything."

"Perhaps," said Ethel; "but I wish it was you. Can't you? you always know how to manage."

"No; it is Richard's affair, and he must do as he thinks fit. Don't sigh, dear Ethel--perhaps he may soon speak, and, if not, you can be preparing in a quiet way all the time. Don't you remember how dear mamma used to tell us that things, hastily begun, never turn out well?"

"But this is not hasty. I've been thinking about it these six weeks,"

said Ethel. "If one does nothing but think, it is all no better than a vision. I want to be doing."

"Well, you can be doing--laying a sound foundation," said Margaret. "The more you consider, and the wiser you make yourself, the better it will be when you do set to work."

"You mean by curing myself of my slovenly ways and impatient temper?"

"I don't know that I was exactly thinking of that," said Margaret, "but that ought to be the way. If we are not just the thing in our niche at home, I don't think we can do much real good elsewhere."

"It would be hollow, show-goodness," said Ethel. "Yes, that is true; and it comes across me now, and then what a horrid wretch I am, to be wanting to undertake so much, when I leave so much undone. But, do you know, Margaret, there's no one such a help in those ways as Richard.

Though he is so precise, he is never tiresome. He makes me see things, and do them neatly, without plaguing me, and putting me in a rage. I'm not ready to bite off my own fingers, or kick all the rattle-traps over and leave them, as I am when Miss Winter scolds me, or nurse, or even Flora sometimes; but it is as if I was gratifying him, and his funny little old bachelor tidyisms divert me; besides, he teaches me the theory, and never lays hold of my poor fingers, and, when they won't bend the wrong way, calls them frogs."

"He is a capital master for you," said Margaret, much amused and pleased, for Richard was her especial darling, and she triumphed in any eulogy from those who ordinarily were too apt to regard his dullness with superior compassion.

"If he would only read our books, and enter into poetry and delight in it; but it is all nonsense to him," said Ethel. "I can't think how people can be so different; but, oh! here he comes. Ritchie, you should not come upon us before we are aware."

"What? I should have heard no good of myself?"

"Great good," said Margaret--"she was telling me you would make a neat-handed woman of her in time."

"I don't see why she should not be as neat as other people," said Richard gravely. "Has she been telling you our plan?"

And it was again happily discussed; Ethel, satisfied by finding him fully set upon the design, and Margaret giving cordial sympathy and counsel. When Ethel was called away, Margaret said, "I am so glad you have taken it up, not only for the sake of Cocksmoor, but of Ethel. It is good for her not to spend her high soul in dreams."

"I am afraid she does not know what she undertakes," said Richard.

"She does not; but you will keep her from being turned back. It is just the thing to prevent her energies from running to waste, and her being so much with you, and working under you, is exactly what one would have chosen."

"By contraries!" said Richard, smiling. "That is what I was afraid of. I don't half understand or follow her, and when I think a thing nonsense, I see you all calling it very fine, and I don't know what to make of it--"

"You are making yourself out more dull than you are," said Margaret affectionately.

"I know I am stupid, and seem tame and cold," said Richard, "and you are the only one that does not care about it. That is what makes me wish Norman was the eldest. If I were as clever as he, I could do so much with Ethel, and be so much more to papa."

"No, you would not. You would have other things in your head. You would not be the dear, dear old Ritchie that you are. You would not be a calm, cautious, steady balance to the quicksilver heads some of us have got.

No, no, Norman's a very fine fellow, a very dear fellow, but he would not do half so well for our eldest--he is too easily up, and down again."

"And I am getting into my old way of repining," said Richard. "I don't mind so much, since my father has at least one son to be proud of, and I can be of some use to him now."

"Of the greatest, and to all of us. I am so glad you can stay after Christmas, and papa was pleased at your offering, and said he could not spare you at all, though he would have tried, if it had been any real advantage to you."

"Well, I hope he will approve. I must speak to him as soon as I can find him with his mind tolerably disengaged."

The scene that ensued that evening in the magic lantern before Margaret's bed, did not promise much for the freedom of her father's mind. Harry entered with a resolute manner. "Margaret, I wanted to speak to you," said he, spreading himself out, with an elbow on each arm of the chair. "I want you to speak to papa about my going to sea. It is high time to see about it--I shall be thirteen on the fourth of May."

"And you mean it seriously, Harry?"

"Yes, of course I do, really and truly; and if it is to come to pass, it is time to take measures. Don't you see, Margaret?"

"It is time, as you say," answered Margaret reflectingly, and sadly surveying the bright boy, rosy cheeked, round faced, and blue eyed, with the childish gladsomeness of countenance, that made it strange that his lot in life should be already in the balance.

"I know what you will all tell me, that it is a hard life, but I must get my own living some way or other, and I should like that way the best," said he earnestly.

"Should you like to be always far from home?"

"I should come home sometimes, and bring such presents to Mary, and baby, and all of you; and I don't know what else to be, Margaret. I should hate to be a doctor--I can't abide sick people; and I couldn't write sermons, so I can't be a clergyman; and I won't be a lawyer, I vow, for Harvey Anderson is to be a lawyer--so there's nothing left but soldiers and sailors, and I mean to be a sailor!"

"Well, Harry, you may do your duty, and try to do right, if you are a sailor, and that is the point."

"Ay, I was sure you would not set your face against it, now you know Alan Ernescliffe."

"If you were to be like him--" Margaret found herself blushing, and broke off.

"Then you will ask papa about it?"

"You had better do so yourself. Boys had better settle such serious affairs with their fathers, without setting their sisters to interfere.

What's the matter, Harry--you are not afraid to speak to papa?"

"Only for one thing," said Harry. "Margaret, I went out to shoot pee-wits last Saturday with two fellows, and I can't speak to papa while that's on my mind."

"Then you had better tell him at once."

"I knew you would say so; but it would be like a girl, and it would be telling of the two fellows."

"Not at all; papa would not care about them."

"You see," said Harry, twisting a little, "I knew I ought not; but they said I was afraid of a gun, and that I had no money. Now I see that was chaff, but I didn't then, and Norman wasn't there."

"I am so glad you have told me all this, Harry dear, for I knew you had been less at home of late, and I was almost afraid you were not going on quite well."

"That's what it is," said Harry. "I can't stand things at all, and I can't go moping about as Norman does. I can't live without fun, and now Norman isn't here, half the time it turns to something I am sorry for afterwards."

"But, Harry, if you let yourself be drawn into mischief here for want of Norman, what would you do at sea?"

"I should be an officer!"

"I am afraid," said Margaret, smiling, "that would not make much difference inside, though it might outside. You must get the self-control, and leave off being afraid to be said to be afraid."

Harry fidgeted. "I should start fresh, and be out of the way of the Andersons," he said. "That Anderson junior is a horrid fellow--he spites Norman, and he bullied me, till I was big enough to show him that it would not do--and though I am so much younger, he is afraid of me.